Prince William calls on Musk and Bezos to save Earth 2:22
(CNN) -
The issue of overpopulation causing the loss of wildlife in Africa is not one that Prince William overlooks.
While seeking reactions to the speech that the second in line to the British throne delivered on Monday at an awards ceremony in which he said "The increasing pressure on the wildlife and wilderness of Africa, as a consequence of the human population, it is a huge challenge for conservationists, "I came across almost identical statements that I had made four years earlier.
"Throughout my life we have seen global wildlife populations have been reduced by more than half," the prince said in 2017 at a gala for the same charity, The Tusk Trust.
"Africa's rapidly growing human population is projected to more than double by 2050, a staggering three and a half million people a month. There is no question that this increase puts wildlife and habitat under stress. enormous pressure. "
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Then, as now, people have been quick to point out two things: The first is the hypocrisy of the Duke of Cambridge. This is a man who has determined the size of his family, who travels frequently by plane and who lives a lavish lifestyle (read: generates a large carbon footprint) in one of the 15 most energy-consuming countries in the world . (Energy consumption is a limited measure of the UK's environmental impact, as the UK largely imports its products. Another country, China, is responsible for the energy used to produce these goods).
The second questionable point of the prince's statements focuses on the inaccurate conclusions that follow from the increase in the African population.
Although the African population is growing, it is still more sparsely populated than Europe or Asia;
indigenous communities that live closer to wildlife are often excellent stewards of the environment, as their survival depends on it;
and, again, it is human behavior, and not the number of people, that most directly harm the biosphere.
Prince William speaks at a gala for the Tusk conservation charity at The Roundhouse on November 2, 2017, in London, UK.
But there are more things that are wrong with what Prince William said: By identifying population growth as the problem, he logically presents population control as the solution.
This automatically transforms the wombs into legitimate venues for climate policy.
In other words, the right of women to contraception and education becomes a weapon: they are no longer tools that help women access a greater choice, but this goal of gender equality is hijacked to impose the someone else's agenda.
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Let's imagine for a moment that we accept that population growth, and specifically, population growth in Africa, leads to increased pressure on wildlife, an argument that Prince William considers irrefutable.
How should this be approached?
A one-child policy as a condition for development aid?
How will the impact of this population reduction be measured?
Who is going to say if it is enough to mitigate environmental damage?
And if it is not, what will happen then?
Prince William seems to have avoided speculating on how to fix his problem.
His grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, was not so wise and is known to have called for the "voluntary limitation of the family" to cope with a growing human population.
It is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that the women's body has been implicated in the political agenda. In 2017, Denmark, which tends to top the rankings of the best countries to be a woman, pledged additional funds to help women access family planning because "part of the solution to reducing migration pressures on Europe is to reduce the skyrocketing growth demographic of many African countries ".
It should be obvious to all that the panic over population growth in the black, brown and indigenous areas of the world is based on race and class prejudices.
It should be equally obvious that what every woman needs is the freedom to choose for herself if she wants to have children, when and how many.
If, despite his years of talking about conservation, Prince William has not considered that his concern for the wildlife of Africa could stigmatize the women of Africa, perhaps now is the time to do so.
AfricaPopulationPrince William